Silicon Valley field trip benefits Woodland teens as well as tech industry

MILPITAS - Juan Rico wanted a computer in the worst way when he was 12 years old. In this bustling Silicon Valley city, he might have received one by kindergarten. But where he lives, it just wasn't going to happen.

"When I asked my mom for a computer, she said we didn't have enough money," the Cache Creek High School senior said Wednesday. "So I asked her if she could help me build one. And she said, 'yes!'"

Juan and his single mom, Peggy Rico, asked friends for old parts, bought a few components they could afford, and patched together a desktop. Sure, it looked clunky, but only one thing mattered.

"It worked!"

Juan has been hooked on high tech ever since, so much so that he hopped on a bus this week with about 40 low-income and working-class students from Woodland, Pioneer and Cache Creek high schools on a field trip to KLA-Tencor Corp. The Milpitas company makes machines that inspect microchips for defects.

"It's like trying to find a dime on the planet Earth," company vice president John Kent explained before the kids filed in. "We're going to show them what it's like to work inside a high-tech company and solve problems."

This was no ordinary field trip and no ordinary technology company. And this is one of those valley stories about the labor needs of high technology actually meshing with America's promise of equal opportunity for all.

For starters, these students, like Juan, were already jazzed about technology. They're among the brightest at school. They receive vigilant guidance and tutoring. But where they come from, a tech career is more often a modest wish or crazy pipe dream. They still need to see and feel the real thing to stay on track.

And KLA-Tencor is among the very few companies that still produce hardware in the valley. We're not talking cell phones. We're talking big, multi-million dollar units designed for the semiconductor industry.

"The talent we need for what we produce is here," spokeswoman Meggan Powers said. "And there's a lot of competition for it."

Juan and the other Yolo County students came from high schools in the Woodland Joint Unified School District just north of Sacramento, where 60 percent of students are poor enough they qualify for free or subsidized lunches. They were joined by about a dozen students from the Oakland Military Institute, a charter high school for urban students who are no better off.

"This trip can be a game-changer for them," said Garth Lewis Jr., Woodland Unified's director of secondary education.

Standing quietly in the back of the room was Frank Sammann, an Oakland Military benefactor and veteran marketing and information services executive. He noted how the government had doled out all of this year's 85,000 H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers by Monday. A frustrated tech industry wants more visas, but Sammann is more interested in a long-term solution.

"We don't have an immigration problem, for God's sake, we have an education problem," Sammann said. "I don't want to kill the H-1B visa. I want to replace it with homegrown talent."

It's not even close to a universal goal in high tech, but a handful of local and national organizations made a start. Wednesday's field trip to KLA-Tencor was organized by a foundation affiliated with SEMI, a San Jose-based global association of companies serving the semiconductor industry.

In 2012, the foundation started SEMI High Tech U to help interested students take the next steps toward careers in the field. It has offered about 165 similar sessions, plus summer internships and programs for high school teachers. The field trips, which can last three days, cost about $30,000. Host companies usually foot all or part of the bill.

"So often, students do not get to explore careers in a way to help them decide if they want to go down a career path. As a result, young people often choose what they know, even if their interests and passions are elsewhere," said Antonia Lynn Slagle, Learning Community Director at Pioneer High School, in a statement Thursday. "We are so excited to see our students getting the opportunity to get real-world, hands-on experience with industry professionals at High Tech U. I would not be surprised if a small group comes back and has found their calling."

It took a while for the shy Woodland and Oakland students to warm up to some straight-talking executives and managers from KLA-Tencor willing to share their own stories. The kids got a mixed dose of warm motivation, scary stories about friends who didn't go to college, and the occasional sales pitch for working at a place like KLA-Tencor.

The students learned about layering microchips on silicon wafers and other specifics, and played a popular TV game fashioned out of the scientific Periodic table. But the coolest part of the day, they said, was when they put on sanitary, white jumpsuits and explored the company's clean room. This is where a speck of dust or loose strand of hair can ruin a silicon wafer layered with microchips.

The teenagers came out all giggles. About half of them were girls, a group better known for losing interest in math and science before graduation. High Tech U aims to keep them interested and launch them into tech.

During a rare break in their busy day, Oakland Military student Yvonne Folau said the field trip just might help her decide where to take her math and science skills.

"It could be technology," the 15-year-old student of Tongan heritage said. "This trip can help me decide. I hope so."